In North American sports car racing over the past 35 years, there have really only been a couple of mainstays on the scene. One was Scott Pruett, who was a factory driver with Roush Racing in the 1980s before moving to INDYCAR and CART. He then returned after a stint in the NASCAR Cup Series and had a long career in Daytona Prototypes before stepping away in 2018.
The other is Bill Auberlen, a 53-year-old racer out of Redondo Beach, Calif., who has been racing sports cars almost continuously since 1987. The vast majority of his career has been spent racing BMWs, a relationship that stretches back to 1995.
Prior to that, Auberlen had primarily raced Porsche 911s and a Mazda RX-7 in IMSA competition. BMW had just entered the GTS-2 class with a pair of factory backed M3s with Valvoline sponsorship but had struggled with mechanical issues.
“[Me joining up with BMW] is a crazy story,” Auberlen told Frontstretch at Watkins Glen International earlier this year. “I had raced my own Mazda RX-7 back in the day, but I couldn’t afford to pay to get onto a good team. Had to do it all myself.”
What that entailed at first was racing a Porsche owned by his father Gary, a former class winner at the 12 Hours of Sebring, and crewed by himself and a group of friends who worked in a Porsche repair shop. Eventually, they sold the Porsche and bought an RX-7 from South Carolina-based past IMSA GTU champion Roger Mandeville. Auberlen campaigned that car into the 1990s.
Eventually, in 1995, things came to a head during the season-ending street race weekend in New Orleans. Auberlen crashed his Mazda in practice and nearly wrote it off, enough that it couldn’t be repaired at the track. At the time, he was second in GTS-2 points.
Charlie Slater, who also owned IMSA at the time, offered up his seat in the Alex Job Racing No. 26 Porsche 911. He then out-qualified the now-sorted M3s to start on pole in an unfamiliar car.
“I end up winning the race in the Porsche,” Auberlen said. “I see some of the BMW guys someplace later and I tell the marketing guy, ‘Hey, tell BMW to hire me, I’ll leave my Mazda at home and you can win your first race.’”
Auberlen described this tactic as somewhat pretentious and a definite change in pace from what he normally did at the time. However, it worked.
“I get a phone call from Tom Milner (owner of PTG Racing),” he said. “He says, ‘Texas World Speedway is coming up. How much is it gonna cost for you to race for us. I…
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